NATIVE LAW
Supreme Court of Alaska (2024)
Brendan Genaw
The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) allows Alaskan indigenous tribes to petition to transfer child custody proceedings from superior court to the tribe’s jurisdiction, and in Rosalind M. v. Dep’t of Fam. & Cmty. Servs., Off. of Children’s Servs., 555 P.3d 505 (Alaska 2024), the supreme court held that state courts could not deny jurisdictional transfer petitions based on whether transfer of jurisdiction would impact the child’s future placement. (Id. at 506–7). The court may deny transfer of jurisdiction under the ICWA only if a parent objects or for “good cause,” and factors pertaining to whether the jurisdictional transfer could affect the child’s eventual placement do not factor into “good cause.” (Id.). In this case, Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services (OCS) had temporary custody of a 2020 newborn from the Native Village of Togiak (the “Tribe”) and placed the child with foster parents. (Id. at 507). In 2022, the Tribe petitioned for a transfer of jurisdiction over the child’s child in need of aid (CINA) proceeding. (Id.). The foster parents filed a motion to intervene based on their belief that the jurisdictional transfer would result in the child ultimately being placed with his grandmother, who they believed was unable to adequately care for the child. (Id.). The supreme court denied the intervention and differentiated cases involving a transfer of jurisdiction from cases involving a challenge to placement. (Id. at 507). Here, the challenge was to a jurisdictional transfer not to placement. (Id.). The ICWA exists to enable tribes to adjudicate their own child custody matters, and state courts cannot block jurisdictional transfers based on speculations regarding the impact of future tribal courts proceedings. (Id. at 513).
